Automation playback intermittent
 

I have a session that is playing back plugin automation intermittently. I've gone though and mixed the DX of a 45 min doc. When I go back to the top and play through, some of the automation will just not play back-- a frequency change of a HPF here, a threshold of a limiter there, various different things. I see the automation break points in the automation lane, and if I back up and play sometimes it will follow, sometimes not.

I was having memory issues earlier, so I split this session into just the DX tracks, so the session is not big at all. It's only using 4% of the CPU (RTAS) and 19% PCI.

I've tried duplicating tracks, removing plugins and copying the automation lanes to new plugins. Changing from RTAS to TDM and back. Nothing seems to work.

Any ideas?

-Richard

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

I have the same problems with automation not being reliable. I actually got PT to "fail" playing automation correctly in a session with 1 (one) track of dialogue. In this case Equality would not engage at the correct time (sometimes it worked other times it did not). This was a telephone tap EQ so the automation changes were extreme and fast, sometimes 1 frame to engage telephone filter. I am not saying that it is Equality's fault but PT failed to engage automation if it was "automation busy/fast changes" even on a session with one single audio track and one video track. For example, if you use EQ to automate down extreme "S" sounds, PT may fail to engage automation as the changes appear to be "too fast" for PT to follow. Also, if you are engaging automation at the start of a region try give it at least 10 frames of "advanced engaged automation" before the region actually starts (this was causing a problem too). I think that somehow PT's automation is affected by the video offset setting and even the playback engine settings (but I can not confirm that I just think this is the case).

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

Could it have something to do with "Allow latch prime in Stop".

I remember not having that on and automation I thought I was writing, wasnt writing.

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

In my case this happens during play back, nothing to do with writing automation. Once you have written the automation it is like Pro-Tools fails to engage certain parameters but it is random errors. This also happens on Bounce to Disk all the time (,makes bounce to disk useless)...on heavy film sessions (I have no idea if it also affects smaller music sessions).

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

Not in this case. I don't have that toggled on. Mainly it's happening on a McDSP ML4000 ML1 threshold parameter on playback. I can plainly see the automation breakpoints, but PT seems to just ignore them as they go by.

-R

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

What happens if you move the breakpoint a half a second before the region?
Or even just try it a frame to see if it has something to do with the breakpoint and the region.

I do this with my BG EQ's and the REQ6, more because the filters pop.

Re: Automation playback intermittent
 

yeah, I do that to to avoid the popping too. It's begrudgingly become part of my routine. This is different though. Even after I move the break point manually, initially it will play back fine, then after a moment I can go over the same spot and it will ignore the automation again.

At the moment it seems to be working. I created a blank session with new tracks and new instances of the same plugins. I then imported the playlists without any automation, and then imported just the automation-- it seems to be working, but this is one of those problems that completely breaks my confidence in my tools. I'm on a tight deadline on this show-- the last thing I need is for automation to be flaky when I'm doing a layback.

Lexaudio, thanks for your ideas. I appreciate the help.

Digi, do you have any input?

Richard